Writer Melville Davisson Post (April 19, 1869-June 23, 1930) was born in Harrison County. He became immensely popular as a writer starting with his 1896 short story collection, The Strange Schemes of Randolph Mason (Putnam). He continued to publish until his death. Much of his work is set in the 19th-century West Virginia countryside.

His best-known works are the Randolph Mason series, published in three volumes, and the more successful collection, Uncle Abner: Master of Mysteries (Appleton, 1918). Post wrote other short works, mostly detective fiction, including the Monsieur Jonquelle series and the Walker of the Secret Service series and many articles, essays, and treatises. Among Post’s longer works are Dwellers in the Hills (Putnam, 1901), The Mountain School-teacher (Appleton, 1922), and Revolt of the Birds (Appleton, 1927), which are all underrated but indicative of Post’s varied and huge talent. His total output was approximately 230 titles.

Post’s love of the outdoors, the forests, and the weather shows through in all his major works. In ‘‘Woodford’s Partner’’ in Strange Schemes of Randolph Mason (Putnam, 1896), Post takes six pages to describe the Valley of Virginia as if he were standing on a mountaintop delivering a lecture. It is a tribute to the farmers, the cattlemen, the traders, and businessmen who lived and died and prospered in the land between the frontier and the East Coast.

From a long line of Western Virginians, Post’s forebears date back to 1773 when Daniel Davisson settled in the heart of future Clarksburg. With a law degree from West Virginia University (1892) and the successful launching of a writing career with Randolph Mason, Post married Ann Bloomfield Gamble Schoolfield in 1903 and together they traveled the world and the East Coast before settling down at the ‘‘Chalet’’ in Harrison County. Their European adventures helped Post find settings for much of his other work. Their one child died shortly after birth, and Mrs. Post died of pneumonia in 1919. Still rising in skill and fame, Post loved to ride and while riding in 1930, he fell. He died of the injuries and was buried in Harrison County.

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"There was a long twilight in these hills. The sun departs, but the day remains. A sort of weird, dim, elfin day, that dawns at sunset, and envelops and possesses the world. The land is full of light, but it is the light of no heavenly sun. It is a light equal everywhere, as though the earth strove to illumine itself, and succeeded with that labor.
"The stars are not yet out. Now and then a pale moon rides in the sky, but it has no power, and the light is not from it. The wind is usually gone; the air is soft, and the fragrance of the fields fills it like a perfume. The noises of the day and of the creatures that go about by day cease, and the noises of the night and of the creatures that haunt the night begin. The bat swoops and circles in the maddest action, but without a sound. The eye sees him, but the ear hears nothing. The whippoorwill begins his plaintive cry, and one hears, but does not see.
"It is a world that we do not understand, for we are creatures of the sun, and we are fearful lest we come upon things at work here, of which we have no experience, and that may be able to justify themselves against our reason. And so a man falls into silence when he travels in this twilight, and he looks and listens with his senses out on guard."